It Rains Bullets and Knives Tonight
by DarkDefender89
Summary: Post TDK; takes place after DNA proved that Harvey was the one who killed the 5 people. A mysterious girl is on the run from the past;a Dark Night is after justice.Everyone in Gotham is alone and everything is corrupted. So much crime. So much hatred.
1. Chapter 1

**It Rains Bullets and Knives Tonight**

_A Batman Story_

**AU: Bruce tried to take the blame for Harvey but DNA proved that Harvey did it. This story takes place afterwards and deals with the criminals that were released, new criminals, a strong misfit runaway girl, and of course the dark knight everyone loves. Disclaimer: I don't own Batman; only the two characters I am creating, Kelsey Lannis, Hannah Lannis and Garret Sanders.**

"_You have to stand up to be stronger."_

In the middle of the night, Gotham City was at its darkest. Rain shaped like tiny crystal balls collided with see-through windows of Gotham City's foreboding skyscrapers. Evil was not far. A scruffy-haired man wandered the streets, his fists raging flames out for filth, sex, and money. His dirty red hair and his evil-looking black eyes were a sinister image, a step up from Lao and his fellow crimelords. This wandering man was anything but, and Lao, back in Hong Kong after the legal system failed to convict him of the crimes he was arrested for. All of those men, they were in it for the cash. Slimy scum they were, but deep down they were grey mice, flickering in and out, the image incessantly weakening. Some days the pulse convoluted with a sudden burst of strength, but in the end their will would waver with the opportunity of illegal money spurting in a new avenue.

The cracked sidewalk was wet and the man tripped on a strangely shaped stone, landing on his hands. He grunted and wiped his now bloody hands on his pants before standing up. He shook his head, merely annoyed but not at all limited by the sharp pain that still seared his hands. He placed his long gray hood over his head, covering his eerie eyes.

He walked forward. He did not feel threatened by Gotham City's Dark Knight, the Batman. He was Garret Sanders, new to the town, yes, but not thickheaded like some other criminals Gotham City has faced. In stealth, Sanders walked forward, paying careful attention to blend in with the shadows as much as possible. _'I am the shadows,' _he thought. _'And the shadows ought to be feared.'_

Sanders eyes opened widely when he saw an alleyway. He grinned and glanced left and right. To his right a young girl walked, completely unaware, minding her own business. Sanders moved like a snake behind her, assuming that she was the bookworm she appeared to be and didn't notice. He leaned over her shoulder and noticed the thick purple book she was reading. Then he noticed her long, curly red hair and her disheveled clothes. Was she homeless, or was this just another late night? It mattered not, though; the dam bitch had it coming for her. Sanders grabbed her shoulders and pulled her into the thin alleyway with bone-crushing force. The girl squealed; at second glance the girl appeared to be no older than thirteen. Sanders ignored the girl's please and started to forcefully unbutton her shirt.

"Quiet, you bitch!" he roared. He shoved her to the ground: the image was grotesque…_she was like a ghost lying on the ground, curled up in a fetal position, with pale, vampiric-looking skin, icy blue eyes, dirty but vintage-looking clothes; she shivered, fear resonating from within her core, but she wasn't really afraid, it was all but an illusion. 'My sister will come,' she thought. 'But she's not in Gotham yet, Hannah. Don't be a fool.' Her knees bulged out of her stick thin legs like spears budging out of an awkward stick. Hannah thought of punching the pervert. 'Don't count on it,' she argued with herself. 'I'm not my sister.' A lone tear fell down her untainted face, marring her innocent, unmasked beauty with smudged eye-liner that she wore even though her mother told her it made her look like a whore. Hannah, however, looked nothing the part, her make-up obviously lacking: her true-face – and her naivety – shone through._

Sanders picked the girl up by her shoulders and shoved her against the wall, holding a sharp silver knife against her neck. "I wouldn't do that it if I were you," echoed a low, menacing voice. Almost instantaneously after the voice, a huge creature had punched Sanders in the kidneys. It was the Batman. Sanders dropped the girl and turned around, glaring into the Batman's eyes. "I'm not afraid of you," Sanders sneered, attacking the one weak area – the one area that was unprotected, the Batman's chin – with his knife. Sanders expected this to cause the Batman to give up, but the Batman didn't budge. The batman knocked the knife out of Sander's hands and acted as if Sanders had missed, even though Sanders hadn't missed. The Batman punched Sanders in Sanders' face and tied Sanders up for the police to find him.

Sanders wasn't giving up yet – _'Here comes the great Houdini,'_ Sanders chuckled. Before Batman could get Sanders completely tied up, Sanders shifted to the left and side-kicked the Batman in the ribs. Sanders attempted to run after the girl but by the time he was an inch on his way the Batman had him in a firm and painful grip and Sanders cringed. This time Batman successfully tied up Sanders.

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"Are you alright?" the Batman asked the girl. "Did he rape you?"

"No," the girl said, shaking her head. "He probably would have if you didn't arrive. Thank you."

"Don't worry about it. Stay off the streets, they're dangerous."

After driving the girl back to her home, Bruce Wayne continued his nightly patrol as the Batman. It was pouring rain outside, even harder than it was a couple hours ago. Another hour passed and when Bruce thought there were no more thugs, he heard commotion from the corner of the street. Peering into the shadows, he saw a scruffy looking thug attempting to hide as he attempted to steal from an old man. With little effort, Batman snuck up on the thug, moving silently and quickly. He was almost invisible, just as he was trained to be. He grabbed the thug and the thug pointed his gun at the Batman's face, but the Batman twisted the gun out of the thug's hand as he put the thug's hand in a wrist-lock.

"Drop the cash," the Batman bellowed. "Now."

"I didn't take anything," the thug whimpered with fear.

"Liar," the Batman said, punching the thug.

"Fine," the thug quivered, dropping the cash on the wet ground.

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Once Bruce was back in through the Batcave and safely home, he took off his suit and put ice on the huge gash on his chin, ignoring the stinging pain.

"Are you sure that doesn't need stitches, Master Wayne?" Alfred asked.

"I'm fine," Bruce grunted. Alfred looked at him strangely. "Really," Bruce insisted.

"At least let me look at it," Alfred insisted.

"Fine," Bruce said. He placed the bloodied ice sack on the counter and said, "See? It's not that bad."

Bruce Wayne, however, was exaggerating: the cut was long, although perhaps just shallow enough to not need stitches, and blood was still pouring out of it. However, things like this simply come with the job territory. And to Bruce Wayne, it didn't matter, because he saved that little girl, and it was worth it.

**To Be Contined…..**


	2. Chapter 2

"_The world feels not the same, though I know, nothing has changed. It's all my state of mind. I can't leave it all behind. Have to stand up to be stronger."_

_~Within Temptation_

**Ch.2**

_Kelsey Lannis stood outside the edge of Gotham City, staring at the moonlit sky. Her feet did not waver as she stood perfectly still and silent. Her pale skin almost appeared to glow with the shimmer of the moonlight, and her grayish-blue eyes took on an ethereal quality. She did not know what had drawn her here, to this town. Blindly she followed the North Star, listening to the echoes resonating inside of her inner core and hoping fearfully that they led her on the right path. 'But what is this but my Destiny?' a voice inside Kelsey threatened to quiver. But it didn't. Kelsey squelched the words of doubt as soon as they tempted to enter her abode. She had been trained from an early age to not allow any weaknesses of herself. When she was three years old she had been kidnapped from her family and trained by an evil man to become a killing machine. Years ago, Kelsey had managed to kill her master and escape. Now, lost and wandering, Kelsey had not yet forgiven herself for the sins she had unwillingly committed when she was a mere child. At age seventeen, she knew that she was still a child._

_A lone tear fell down her face and Kelsey touched the tear harshly, knowing that she shouldn't cry. Her past was molded into her soul and despite the fact that her master's forbidden evil had vanished Kelsey still could never allow herself to be weak. 'My family's dead, slaughtered,' she remembered. 'This is a world full of monsters and I am the only one who can look out for myself.' Long ago she was taught that if someone caught her off-guard and managed to hurt her, it was __**her**__ fault, not the fault of her enemy._

_Kelsey sighed longingly – not exactly knowing what she was longing for – and let the emptiness that was growing inside of her chest absorb and destroy all of the pain from her past. 'What will Gotham bring to me?' Kelsey thought, and despite the fact that she had no clue what her purpose was, her unwavering willpower and trust in the pull of her unconscious knowing of what she must do allowed her to push herself forward._

_With one step Kelsey swung her torn black tote bag behind her back and took one last step into Gotham. "This is it," Kelsey whispered. "Gotham City, Land of Faded Dreams, here I come."_

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Inside the Wayne Manner, the lights creeped through the windows.

"Wake up, Master Bruce," Alfred said in a soft, kindly voice.

Bruce stirred in his bed and after a couple minutes forced himself out of bed and began doing the 100 pushups he did every morning. Well, if it was morning when he woke up. Bruce stood up and drank the glass Alfred had brought up. "What time is it?" Bruce asked.

"2 p.m," Alfred said. "You have a meeting scheduled at 3:30 p.m., will you be ready?"

Bruce nodded.

"I'll have the car ready when its time," Alfred said.

An hour and a half later, Bruce Wayne was sitting in a boring meeting. The business men in the meeting room droned on and on and Bruce was only half-paying attention. His mind was distracted – last night he had heard from Gordon that a new serial killer was on the loose and so far Bruce hadn't had any luck finding out any information. 'Of course,' he thought sarcastically, 'Right after one serial killer is caught another starts on a psychotic killing rampage.' From the files he read, he knew that the killer had specific patterns, but other than that he didn't know much yet.

Soon the meeting was over and Bruce sighed with relief. However, he remembered that he had to attend the fundraising party he had set up a couple days ago. Bruce groaned internally; a couple more hours of pretending to be an ignorant billionaire playboy.

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"_I'm not staying home," Hannah Lannis said to her adoptive parents._

"_Yes you are."_

_Hannah sighed. They truly did __**not**__ understand her…AT. ALL. _

"_Mom, you know it's important to me," Hannah said._

"_You're a child; you are NOT going to run off looking for your sister. I told you a million times, she's __**dead**__."_

_Hannah scoffed. "You don't know anything.." Even though she was only one year old when her sister was kidnapped and her birth parents were slain, something inside her could remember her sister. Not remember, exactly, but Hannah could __**feel**__ her sister's presence. It didn't make any sense. It was completely illogical. But Hannah had felt alone for her whole life, never had any friends, and it always felt like something was missing._

_And Hannah was pretty sure she would be able to sense it if Kelsey Lannis was dead._

_She hadn't told her fake parents about last night, either. She figured, what's the point? Its not like they would really care, and its not like it affected her in any serious way. All she had to do was shrug her shoulders and then it didn't matter. Not. One. Bit._

_Anyways, Hannah had more than one reason to suspect her sister was alive, and not only that, strong. She had been researching this since she was ten years old, and even though the files were hard to find and barely nonexistent and under several fake names, Hannah knew._

_**And maybe she was more like her sister than she originally thought.**_

_So Hannah Lannis walked out the door, and didn't look back._

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**10:00 P.M., Gotham City**

Bruce Wayne finished putting his black armor on and opened the door to the Tumbler, entered it, and sped out of the Batcave. Whoever the serial killer was had already gotten away with three murders and Batman wasn't about to let him (or her) get away with any more. If only he could be every place at once; it's not like various criminals took turns at corrupting the streets. They all went out on the same night. There were plenty of _them_ and only one of _him_.

Batman was watching over the city, moving across building tops and looking out for criminals below. When he heard a noise, his internal radar went off and Batman silently swept down and appeared behind a burly criminal. It turned out there was more than one; it was a gang trying to get away with selling cocaine. Something alerted Batman to the fact that something about this was more than drugs; as soon as he got them tied up he'd question them before the cops arrived.

First he had to fight them.

At second glance, it turned out that only five of the men were criminals and the six "man" was a young boy that the gang was trying to murder.

"Release him," Batman roared, sneaking up behind the criminal that currently was choking the boy. Batman pulled the man up by his lapel and threw him on the ground. The other members of the gang moved to attack the boy on the ground, but batman stood in the way, attacking the gang member with a spinning roundhouse kick as he tried to get his hands on the boy. The gang member tried to punch Batman but Batman easily blocked it and countered it with a counter punch, which made the gang member stumble. Another gang member moved in, thinking Batman was preoccupied with the other one, but Batman easily deflected the knife that the gang member was trying to stab him with and kicked the gang member in the ribs. He started to tie two of the gang members up but he didn't notice that the first one that had fallen had gotten up and was behind him. The gang member punched Batman's lower back but Batman used the momentum of the punch to spin around and crescent kick the criminal in the face, pulling the criminal down at the same time while gripping his wrist and holding it in a wrist lock.

Batman quickly tied the three gang members up so they couldn't escape. He sprinted to the other two remaining gang members, and was relieved when he saw that the boy the gang had been attacking had already run away but was also worried that the boy may have injuries that weren't attended to. The last two men started to run off, trying to escape, but Batman hovered over them and pulled them back. Within no time he had all five criminals tied up.

"You won't get away with this!" Batman roared. "What else were you involved in?"

"I swear to god, nothing…"

"Swear to me!" Batman roared. It sounded like they were stalling and they sounded unnaturally confident, and Batman knew something was up but didn't know what it was.

All of a sudden Batman felt something pound into his side and then fall to the ground and then he realized that someone in the distance had shot him. Luckily Kevlar was bulletproof and the only thing the bullet would do was leave a nasty bruise.

He turned and saw the boy that he thought the gang members were attacking; so apparently this was even more complicated than he thought. A set up?

But then the boy came rushing forward and fell to his knees; Batman saw tears falling from his eyes and he realized that the boy had been aiming at the criminals who attacked him but misaimed.

"They deserve to die," the little boy cried.

No one deserved death, no matter how cruel they were. Well, maybe some people did but it wasn't up to humans to judge.

Batman walked up to the boy after he was sure that the gang members were secured to the wall. "What did they do to you?" he asked.

The boy pointed to his leg; they had shot him in the leg. Bruce called the cops so they would come pick up the criminals, and he drove the boy to the hospital so his leg could be examined, and then Batman continued to patrol long into the middle of the night.

The night went on. the city street lights blurred off and on and dirty minds hid in the shadows and corrupted souls danced when it finally started raining and held their tongues out to catch droplets of the rain, which probably tasted bitter.

Batman continued to patrol the streets. It was the only thing that mattered.

If he was out, maybe he would be able to stop the serial killer. He certainly wouldn't be able to do so if he wasn't out.

He thought he saw someone running, a shadow. Long hair. In the rain there was something very ethereal of a strange shape running in the night.

Not that strange.

It's not safe to be in the Narrows alone. Batman hid in the shadows, watching, protecting.

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Kelsey was running, not because she had to; not because there was someplace she had to be. Not even because there was someone after her. _No one was after her._

No, Kelsey ran because she needed to. She needed the adrenaline rush that came when she was running at an incredible speed; it almost felt like she was flying and her soul was somewhere else, somewhere safe and beautiful; somewhere that had nothing to do with her broken life.

When she was running, Kelsey didn't remember that she never had a life.

_Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill._ Those were the words of the man that for the longest time, she had thought was her father. She remembered him punching her in the gut when she cried. Glaring at her with those sinister green eyes when she flinched in pain after one of those training sessions. 'Punch the bag. Harder.' Her fist had been bleeding. It didn't matter. Harder, harder, harder. So she did. Perfect technique. Four years old.

It hurt so much when she found out that he wasn't her father. That he had taken her. It wasn't his right. And yet. She only found out because of how well he had trained her. To be a killing machine, yes, but at least she could defend herself. And it wasn't as if she didn't like fighting. It wasn't as if fighting wasn't her best language. It wasn't as if fighting didn't make her feel alive, fucking ALIVE.

And of course she blamed herself, because that was how she had been taught.

God, oh god, the monster slaughtered her family, she had found out. She never knew them. She had only been three.

Daro _was _her father. Her kidnapper, yes, but her father. Not by blood, but he was her father. He was the only father she had ever known.

And she had killed him.

Kill the one to save the many, right?

No. It was wrong. Daro had forced her to kill before and Daro surely had killed before and Kelsey was a slave to Daro so Kelsey killed Daro so she never had to kill again….so Daro could never kill again.

Kelsey ran. Kelsey ran and ran and ran and ran. She felt the wind tugging at her long blackish-brown hair. It almost worked.

But she felt so damn numb. So fucking dead.

And yet.

She felt so fierce. She felt so determined. She felt so passionate, despite the fact that she had no access to her passion valve and had no clue what that passion was. Maybe it was just energy, lots of energy, and anger. And she felt alive. More alive than she had ever felt in her seventeen years.

And she didn't know why.

And that puzzled her, angered her, jinxed her.

Somewhere along the line she sensed that someone was watching her. She couldn't see whoever it was, but she knew. _She could feel it._

**To Be Continued…**


	3. Chapter 3

"_**I walk this empty street, on the boulevard of broken dreams. Don't know where it leads, but I'm the only one and I walk alone. Sometimes I wish someone out there would find me. Until then I walk alone."**_

_**~Greenday**_

**3.**

The next day, after waking up around noon, Bruce went into his office to deal with the countless trivialities of his billionaire persona's reputation. He sat through a boring meeting and then went to a 3 p.m. function the other people in his circle expected him to attend. He stood somewhere in the middle of a long room and pretended to be happy but ignorant whenever countless people greeted him. It was important to keep up his public persona; if he didn't, somewhere down the road, the consequences could be dire.

Women hounded him, circling around him like bees surrounding the queen bee, but Bruce wasn't interested. The murder of Rachel Dawes still clouded his mind, but Bruce did his best to give the impression that he was the superficial kind of person who was interested in every single fish in the sea that swam his way. A skinny – too skinny, actually, Bruce wouldn't be surprised if she was anorexic – woman with curly blond hair and a navy blue dress inched through the crowd of women; she might have been a model. "Bruce! Bruce!" she said. Bruce tried to remember how he knew her; God knows there were countless people he supposedly had met but he surely didn't really remember. "How are you?" she says.

"I'm good," Bruce said, smiling his classic billionaire-playboy-smile; the crooked smile that all ladies fall for. Not that Bruce was interested in falling for anyone; he didn't have the time for any other commitments and he certainly learned his lesson from Rachel. He simply refused to endanger any woman's life by entering a serious relationship with her.

Clatter seemed to be invading the room; fake people were swimming in and out of the tide, gossiping about the latest fashion trends and other unimportant things; Bruce felt so out of his element.

He lifted the glass of "wine" (which was really a clever disguise for club soda) to his lips and laughed at something one of the ladies said.

Time passed slowly, but nonetheless Bruce was relieved when the function was over; sometimes it got tiring pretending to be someone who he was not – perhaps even more tiring than his night job. Tiring in a completely different way, of course, more on the mental level, but tiring nonetheless. At the same time, it gave him a slight reprieve from the burden of the city that he chose to put on his shoulders.

He noticed a young teenager in the room; how had she got into a room that was only for adults? She seemed to be sneaking around; it almost looked as if she was searching for someone. Her mother, perhaps? Bruce decided to ignore it, though, as his public persona wouldn't even notice.

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Aurora Alteit didn't know what to do; her adopted daughter had run away a day ago searching for someone who died years ago. Aurora hadn't adopted Hannah right after her parents were killed – Hannah went through a string of foster care homes first and was traumatized when a twenty-two year old Aurora had walked into the foster care home as a volunteer and witnessed one of the adults hitting Hannah. Hannah had been only ten years old at the time and as much as Aurora tried to discourage her, Hannah wouldn't stop obsessively researching her parents' murder and her sister's disappearance. Aurora was only 27 and sometimes it was hard to deal with a temperamental fifteen year old but she loved Hannah, more like a sister than a mother really, and didn't want to lose her. Eventually she decided to go to the police station and report that her daughter was missing.

She got in her car and drove furiously. Her fear for her daughter's safety overrode her sense of obligation to obey the traffic laws. 'She's only fifteen, for Gods sake, and this is Gotham, there's no way she's safe!' Aurora thought. Her midnight blue car was stuck in traffic and glared at the cars surrounding her with a glaze of fire in her eyes. Didn't the people in the other cars understand that this was IMPORTANT; that her daughter could be freaking DEAD for all she knew? Hannah may not be Aurora's biological daughter but by every other sense of the word she was, and Aurora didn't know what she would do if she ever lost her.

She sighed in relief when she showed up at the police station. Momentarily forgetting to breathe, she leapt out of her car and rushed into the building. "Someone help, my daughter is missing!" she screamed as violent tears started rolling down her eyes.

"Calm down miss, I am Commissioner Gordon; everything will be alright. Just sit down and tell me how long she has been missing," Gordon said.

Aurora paced back and forth; her body shook in violent tremors. She was panicking and it was hard for her to respond to instruction in a time like this.

"Please miss, if you don't calm down you won't be able to give us any details and we won't be able to help your daughter," Gordon said.

Aurora sat down on the rusty wooden bench and breathed in deeply.

"You can start by telling us your daughter's name," another police officer suggested.

"Hannah Lannis," Aurora said. "I'm Aurora Alteit, her adoptive mother. Hannah'sparents and sister were killed when she was only three; however she thinks her sister is still alive so last night she randomly decided to go out looking for her."

"What's her sister's name?" Gordon asked.

"Her sister's _dead_; why does it matter?" Aurora said with frustration.

"Just tell us her name, Aurora; every detail is important," Gordon said.

Aurora Alteit wrapped her arms around her chest, as if guarding herself from some primal, biting emptiness and shook her head. A chilly breeze of wind flew into the room through a crack in the window and Aurora shivered, a faint acerbic feeling creeping up her bones and seeping into her veins. "Fine, if you must know, then her sister's name was Kelsey Lannis, but Kelsey died when she was one years old," Aurora said.

"Was there a body?" Gordon asked.

"Well, no, but…" Aurora Alteit said. "We just assumed; she was kidnapped and the search was called off years ago and she was declared dead because no one could find any traces of her. It was just assumed that the bastard who killed Hannah's parents destroyed every last trace of Kelsey's body."

"Alright," Gordon said. "Well, how long has Hannah Lannis been missing?"

"A little less than 24 hours," Aurora said.

"I'm sorry, miss, but missing person's reports can't be filed until a person has been missing for 48 hours," Gordon said.

"What?!?! That's ridiculous!" Aurora said with urgency ringing in her voice. "She might be dead by then!!"

"You said she's fifteen, miss. All teenagers go through a rebellious streak. Just go home and be there when she runs back into your arms, and if she isn't there by tomorrow afternoon then you can come back and file a missing person's report," Gordon said.

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Meanwhile, Hannah Lannis had been quietly searching for her sister and last night she had snuck into a building that was now hosting some fancy function. Feeling awkward and out of place in her dull clothes, Hannah walked around the room trying to search for a familiar face. Kelsey probably wouldn't be here; she probably wasn't even planning on returning to Gotham. 'Well at least I could hope she would,' Hannah thought despondently. Hannah knew that she looked very young for her age so she imagined that people would question her if they saw her, so she tried to hide in the shadows.

"You're a little too young to be at a party like this," a light, teasing voice rang out. Hannah spun around on reflex and found she was face to face with Bruce Wayne. She stared at him, momentarily frozen in place. She imagined she must look something like a deer caught in the headlights.

"Haha yeah I was just searching for my mother, something urgent came up and she wouldn't answer her phone," Hannah lied.

"May I ask how you managed to get in here?" Bruce asked, smiling.

"Um…." Hannah hesitated, looking around frantically. She didn't really feel comfortable around Bruce Wayne with his reputation and the financial power he held over Gotham. Should she lie or tell the truth or just brush it off?

Hannah shrugged and walked away; she certainly didn't care what Bruce Wayne thought. 'Maybe I should just go home. Its not like I'm going to actually find her,' Hannah thought despondently. Sometimes she wished that she had never been adopted; if she had stayed in the shitty foster care cycle then she never would have found out about Kelsey and it sure sucked knowing that she could be out there somewhere and not knowing if she was alright.

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**Gotham City, 11 p.m.**

Kelsey had been walking for hours. Last night she had hid behind a dumpster and snuck in a few hours of sleep. Luckily no one had offed her in her sleep, although Kelsey liked to think that her instincts would force her to stir and her survival instincts would kick in and she would ward off any attempts on her life…not that her life was really worth anything anymore. Her warn-out sneakers wouldn't last that much longer. She had money, but it was Daro's money, and Kelsey didn't want to use it. On this she was adamant: she only used it when it was absolutely necessary, and that was when she was buying food.

The wind swirled in the chaotic night sky and the moon whispered secrets of the night. The moon's soft glow, so aloof and apart from the garbage-soiled streets, the homeless men sleeping on the streets (unlike her, they had no money), the tall, unfriendly buildings and the two-faced business men that most likely lurked deep beneath the coiled hallways of the buildings. And yet the moon shone, so angelic and ghostly, yet nothing like the sun. To Kelsey, it seemed like the moon held an almost demonic presence and despite herself, she shivered.

Her eyes flickered left and right as she walked the streets of Gotham, lurking in the shadows where no one would see her. Her eyes, gray and sharp and ever alert, narrowed when she thought she heard an unfamiliar noise. The blood in her body raced, but her exterior remained calm and relaxed. If she was alert before, then she was even more alert now, her senses activated and her adrenaline pumping. She listened carefully, expecting a dirty man – perhaps wearing loose jeans that didn't fit properly, maybe a black t-shirt, maybe he sported chains on his jeans, maybe he wore a nose ring – to jump out from behind her. She laughed silently as she imagined it in her mind, a man who was so full of himself that he thought he was better than everyone else and no girl could defend herself. However, no man attacked Kelsey from behind.

The noises continued, though, alerting Kelsey to the fact that something was going on and it had nothing to do with her. 'I should just stay out of it,' Kelsey thought, but she knew that it would be wrong for her to just stand there when she could possibly do something to help. For a second she let fear race through her blood, but then she reminded herself who she was and thought of the many ways Daro would have delighted in killing her if he was alive and he smelled the scent of fear on her.

Kelsey breathed deeply, meditating as she walked silently in the night. She was a shadow. She was less than a shadow; she was invisible. Her feet moved silently, following the noises she heard, and what she saw surprised her.

A fight was going on, but it wasn't any ordinary fight. Four bulky men and the weirdest thing she ever saw – a huge man wearing some sort of black armor and a cape – were fighting. She raised her eyebrows in suspicion, though she was still unseen. She noticed that one of the men had snuck behind the caped crusader and held a gun in his hand, and Kelsey knew that she had to do something. She snuck up on the gunned man and silently jumped on him, twisting the gun out of his hands and breaking his wrist as she took him to the ground and kicked his ribs.

A couple seconds later the caped crusader had knocked the other men unconscious and had tied them up. Kelsey did not know why she was still standing there watching; how did she know that he was a good guy? But in her heart she knew.

"Why did you do that? He could have killed you," a low, raspy voice spoke harshly.

Kelsey shrugged. She hadn't been afraid and she would do it again if she had to, although she didn't feel strongly about it either way.

"He had a gun in his hands," Kelsey spoke in a monotone. He would have shot the caped crusader if Kelsey hadn't done anything. Kelsey didn't know that the suit the masked man was wearing was bullet proof and the shot only would have penetrated his armor if it was a straight shot.

"You shouldn't be on the streets alone. Its not safe," his raspy voice spoke again.

Kelsey shrugged again. She wasn't afraid and as long as she was awake she wasn't in any danger. Kelsey lifted her chin and looked defiantly into the masked man's dark, chocolate brown eyes. Her glare was every bit as fierce as his glare.

"I'm not afraid," Kelsey said.

Kelsey slipped into the shadows, silently. She assumed he would leave her alone and let her slip into darkness, and that was what she had hoped would happen. She didn't need nor want anyone to help her; whatever she was going to do (and she still didn't know what that would be), she was going to do it alone.

"You're not safe living on the streets of Gotham," the low, raspy voice spoke but there was a faint, barely detectable element of compassion in the voice.

"_I_ am," Kelsey said. "And how did you know that I live on the streets?" she asked. She looked down at her clothes, worn out with some holes in them. She probably had dark shadows under her eyes and there was dirt on her chin. Anyone who saw her would guess that she was homeless. And maybe she was, but it wasn't the same. Not to her.

She turned around and she found that the masked man had disappeared. She looked left and right but he was nowhere to be seen. Then suddenly she heard sirens….the police were coming to arrest the men that the masked man had taken down. Kelsey slipped into the darkness and walked away – silent and unnoticed, alone in a city that never sleeps. She walked forward, alert and grim, her long hair dark and tangled, her gray eyes aloof like the moon.

She walked forward, into the night.

**To Be Continued….**


End file.
